Real Deal: Watson Wagon brought back to Canastota (video)

MATT POWERS

Published
12:00 am EDT, Friday, April 6, 2012

Dispatch Staff Photo by JOHN HAEGER (Twitter.com/OneidaPhoto)
Joseph DiGiorgio talks about the Watson Wagon as it is moved into the display area on Peterboro Street in Canastota on Thursday, April 5, 2012.

Dispatch Staff Photo by JOHN HAEGER (Twitter.com/OneidaPhoto)
Joseph DiGiorgio talks about the Watson Wagon as it is moved into the display area on Peterboro Street in Canastota on Thursday, April 5, 2012.

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Dispatch Staff Photo by JOHN HAEGER (Twitter.com/OneidaPhoto)
Joseph DiGiorgio talks about the Watson Wagon as it is moved into the display area on Peterboro Street in Canastota on Thursday, April 5, 2012.

Dispatch Staff Photo by JOHN HAEGER (Twitter.com/OneidaPhoto)
Joseph DiGiorgio talks about the Watson Wagon as it is moved into the display area on Peterboro Street in Canastota on Thursday, April 5, 2012.

Real Deal: Watson Wagon brought back to Canastota (video)

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CANASTOTA -- A genuine 1912 Watson Wagon rolled into the village of its birth complete with the original coat of 100-year-old red and green paint still visible.

The fully-functional wagon is an example of the world's first bottom-dump wagon, manufactured in Canastota. A recently-completed glass and brick building near the Town of Lenox Skate Park on South Peterboro Street was created to display the wagon.

The arrival of the wagon was a welcome sight to Canastota Canal Town President Joe DiGiorgio following a surprising turn of events in February.

Click here for a schedule of events for the Watson Wagon dedication ceremony

He and the Canastota Canal Town board of directors were thrilled to find what was believed to be an 1899 Watson bottom-dump wagon being sold by a man in Meadville, Pa. The museum purchased that wagon and brought it to Canastota in October 2010.

A previous Dispatch article about the wagon brought a response from a wagon expert in Minnesota who identified the wagon as a Troy/Ajax bottom-dump wagon manufactured in Troy, Ohio.

The always-innovative David Watson was known to experiment with a wide variety of materials and designs. He was often successful and patented many of his wagon parts. But many of those innovations were copied by the competition as patents expired after seven years.

DiGiorgio believes that was the case with what he now agrees is likely a 1914-15 era Troy/Ajax bottom-dump wagon.

The discovery sent him on a national and international search for a genuine Watson Wagon.

He spoke with representatives from the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, which has a 1900 Watson Wagon on display. He asked if could get it on loan and originally the representatives said yes. Only later did they realized the wagon could not be removed from the display because the exhibit was built around it, meaning the wagon could not get out the door in one piece.

DiGiorgio called a lumber historian in Maine about a restored Watson Wagon pieced together from three separate wagons. He asked about loaning it and the historian declined but said he was free to have the leftover parts. DiGiorgio was willing to take them for display purposes but the historian said it would take until June to get them. The parts were under five feet of snow and down by a river bank only accessible by an ATV.

DiGiorgio got leads in Ohio and a museum in Alberta, Canada, but with no success.

The museum officials were not aware of exactly what they had and not sure how they acquired it.

DiGiorgio made the call and began negotiating a loan with the museum.

"It was a lot of jumping through hoops but they were super cooperative," he said. "I just had to go through their procedures."

Pennsylvania state museum policy dictates that Canastota cannot buy the wagon, so it will remain on loan. He will have to renew the loan yearly but the Canal Town Museum is only responsible for paying the insurance on the wagon.

"It's on loan but I think it's going to stay here because they have no particular use for it," he said.

There are many indisputable characteristics which make this wagon a genuine Watson Wagon, including double-dovetailed construction, distinctive winding gears, the size of the undercarriage chain, the color of paint such as the gold pinstriping, inner and outer steel reinforcements, double-rachetted doors and 4-inch-wide rear wheels.

The 1.5 cubic yard wagon is capable of holding 4,500 pounds of construction materials such as concrete. The wagon itself weighs 2,066 pounds.

DiGiorgio said it would have sold for around $245 in 1912.

Transporting the wagon from the museum to its new home was a bigger task than he had first imagined.

"The museum would not give us the wagon on an open trailer," he said. "It had to be enclosed and tied down properly."

DiGiorgio said he felt lucky because it would have been cost prohibitive to rent the large aluminum trailer usually used to transport cars. He also appreciated Kime taking time off from work at the store to leave at 6 a.m. and drive five hours each way to retrieve the wagon.

They strapped the wagon tightly into the trailer and also engaged the wagon's still-working brakes.

A group of volunteers unloaded the wagon and placed it inside the specially-constructed building on South Peterboro Street.

DiGiorgio said the Troy/Ajax wagon will be used for parades and other events while the genuine Watson Wagon remains on display in the building.

The informational boards on the exterior of the building will tell the history of the Watson Wagon Company and the Troy/Ajax wagon. Twelve posters on the interior will show how a bottom-dump wagon operates. There will also be a plaque to honor volunteers and donors who helped make the building possible.

The horse-drawn dumping wagons he invented proved to be very popular and the plant was expanded in the early 1900s. The factory had its own blacksmith shop and lumber yard. The company slogan was, "First in the field and last to the repair shop."

The same company was renamed the Rex-Watson Company in the 1930s and specialized in the manufacturing of special truck and bus bodies.

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